Recent advances in covalent organic frameworks for separation and analysis of complex samples

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) is two- or three-dimensional crystalline porous structures constructed by strong covalent bonds between organic subunits. As a new fascinating crystalline porous material, COFs have become a rapidly rising star in various fields such as gas separation and storage, catalysis, drug delivery, sensing and so on. Recently, COFs materials show great potential in analytic chemistry due to their low density, large surface areas, tunable pore size and tailored functionality. Considering that COFs have received considerable attention during the past years and will continue to be one of the interesting and hot research topics. This review describes the application of the porous COFs and their derived materials in proteomics analysis, separation and determination of various substances including harmful substances, isomers and pharmaceuticals. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities of COFs in these applications.